March 30, 2009

You walk ahead of me. And I keep pace with you when I can. Often, I lose sight of you.

Suddenly…when I look down at a pebble I trip on, if I look at one of the sights that lie around me, if I stop for a moment to catch my breath. And you are gone, in one jiffy.

It has now so become that I keep my eyes on you and walk. Ignoring the stumbles and falls, the sights and sounds. You race ahead, sometimes look back, taking in all that is offered by this world, absorbing and singing, dancing and whistling a tune, a smile on your lips. The lips that I have been chasing for centuries now.

Why do you follow me? You ask that once in a while and I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know if there really is anything else I can do. So I follow you because that is all I know to do.

But one day, I stop chasing and following. And I collapse and fall and lie down on the sand, face down, the sun beating down on me because my feet are too tired of following you. They will carry me no more and I must stop, body stretched beyond the forces of the will. I breathe, finally at rest, but panic building that I have lost sight of you again.

I look up once and see a mirage, an oasis and I am too tired to get up and reach the cool palms and the blue little pond. And I sleep.

I wake up after what feels like ages. I don’t know how long I have slept but it feels like it’s been a long long time. I am parched and I need water. I look up and the oasis is still there. I struggle to my feet and slip, get up again and the sight in front of me shimmers unrealistically. But I walk on, and I reach the oasis. It is not a mirage and I feel a stab of guilt at not having walked to it earlier.

I drink deeply from the waters and I see you, sitting a little way further, drinking from the waters too.

You look up and smile at me and I want to ask you why you are not running away from me now. It is exactly what I wanted, for you to not run, and now that you are doing what I want you to, I want to know why you are doing it…so I shut up and just look at you and manage to smile back.

You finish drinking and dust your clothes, wash your face and find a fruit to chew on. You take your own time again and finally, you notice me again and walk up to me. It is so odd to see you walking to me that I stay very still, afraid that everything will disappear if I move. You come and stand in front of me and offer a hand.

“Do you like this place?”

“Is that the question I want after centuries of chasing you?”

“May be not but do you like it?”

“Yes. Better than the arid lands.”

“I am glad you like it.”

“Why did you make me chase you?”

“I didn’t ask you to. You followed me.”

“You could have walked with me.”

“We would never have made it on time then.”

“I didn’t want to keep losing sight of you.”

“You had to. You were too busy chasing me to notice the sights on the way. So I had to disappear so you would look around a bit before resuming.”

“But you didn’t leave me much time to look around either.”

“Because you had to remember that the final destination is here.”

“What if I had not chased you?”

“You would have still made it here. All your roads lead to the same place.”

“But why did you ask me, now and then, the reason behind my chasing you?”

“To make you ask yourself that you do not chase me. You chase this and I am only leading you here.”

I stay quiet. You leave my hand. You ask your last question.

“Why didn’t you run? I would have followed. We would have reached the same place.”

March 23, 2009

Its 2 am. And its sub zero outside. When she exhales through her mouth, there is a tiny little fog that she creates. She does this on glass panes and traces odd shapes on it until they slowly disappear. There are people sitting around the room, laughing, talking, asking questions and giving answers, while she nods in agreement and pretends to be interested.

She is a little sleepy and happy drawing patterns on the glass and answering an occasional question, making an occasional non-controversial comment, making sure she does not get drawn into any conversation that would pull her out of her little corner and make her leave the comfort of not actively thinking.

She holds a little white porcelain teacup in her hands, cupping it with her palms, letting the heat of the drink sink into her skin like liquid fire. The soup is hot and just out of the pot. Red and oranges swirl in her cup, flecks of carrot and pureed tomato. A swig of mint and a small shredded basil leaf. Tiny oregano dots swim around with bits of black pepper, the aroma of tamarind curling up into her nostrils.

She can smell the tang of ginger and the raw sensuousness of onions and garlics floating in the cup she holds. She closes her eyes, breathes in deeply once and identifies every spice that must have boiled its way to heaven after leaving a bit of its identity in this soup. She peers into the cup again, looking at the swirls of creamy white that have been casually drawn on the surface of the soup, like a little whirlpool.

The mint leaf sits right in the middle of the eye of this whirlpool. Delicious.

It is nice to drink tomato soup in a teacup. Not much, not little and just enough to keep her warm. The cold is severe and everybody is wrapped in woolens, thermals and small talk. She hears something about beer and chaai and she looks up. She sees him animatedly starting another pointless debate, like most other debates.

“So what wins? Beer on a hot night or chaai on a cold night?”

There are catcalls and hoots and yeses and noes. The argument lasts for about 5 minutes. Nobody reaches any consensus, the Indianness in chaai and the coolness in beer at war. 2.30 am. She smiles before draining her cup.